Shooting on Delaware State's campus triggers rapid response

Published: Saturday, September 22, 2007

RANDALL CHASEASSOCIATED PRESS

DOVER, Del. - Violence weighed especially heavily on the minds of Delaware State University officials in recent months, both because of the Virginia Tech massacre and the execution-style shootings of three of their own students in New Jersey.

Just before 1 a.m. Friday, less than a month after a memorial for their own dead, the violence was on their campus. Two students were wounded, one seriously, when gunfire broke out as a group of students were walking across the campus mall after leaving a dining hall.

University officials, mindful of concerns over Virginia Tech's response to that tragedy, rushed to action. University spokesman Carlos Holmes was in such a hurry he didn't notice until later that he had put on one brown shoe and one black shoe.

Associated Press

Delaware State University student Devin Jackson, right, talks with a member of law enforcement as he leaves campus in Dover, Del., Friday, Sept., 21, 2007. Two students were shot and wounded, one seriously, at Delaware State University early Friday, Sept., 21, 2007, and the campus was locked down as police searched for a gunman, officials said.

Even as the victims were being transported to hospitals, campus police and residence hall advisers were knocking on doors and telling students to stay in their rooms, although not all were told there had been a shooting.

"They just told everybody to go to their rooms and close the doors," said Walter Cook III, 18, a freshman from Upper Marlboro, Md.

Less than two hours after the shootings, a notification warning had been posted on the school's Web site and dormitory buildings. And that morning the campus was shut down - unlike at Virginia Tech, where classes went on in the two hours it took for two murders to turn into 32.

There are a host of differences between the two campus shootings. Delaware State is about one-seventh the size of Virginia Tech, both in enrollment and acreage. The Virginia Tech shootings began as students and faculty were starting their day, not the middle of the night.

And most significantly, Friday's shootings did not appear to be the act of someone bent on mass murder.